Vivianne Akriche is Managing Director, based in New York. She specializes in the consumer and business services sectors and has notably participated in the structuring and/or oversight of the investments in Rexel, Intercos, Moncler, Fonroche, Les Petits Chaperons Rouges, WordStrides and Sommet Education. She was also involved in the strategic acquisition of Eurazeo PME.

Before joining Eurazeo in 2004, Vivianne was part of the investment banking team at Goldman Sachs in Paris.

Vivianne Akriche has a master’s degree from H.E.C. School of Management in Paris.

Mr. Alexandros Aldous is the General Counsel, Chief Government Relations Officer, and Corporate Secretary of The Chefs’ Warehouse, Inc., a NASDAQ listed, S&P 600 small cap international food distribution and manufacturing company, with operations across North America. Mr. Aldous is also an adjunct professor of law at The Washington College of Law, American University. Prior to joining The Chefs’ Warehouse in 2011, Mr. Aldous held positions including those with Barclays Capital, LLC, in London, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions and capital markets; and with Shearman & Sterling LLP, in New York, where he specialized primarily in mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Aldous received his Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in Classics and Government from Colby College; a Juris Doctor and M.A. in International Relations from American University; and an LL.M. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Mr. Aldous is a member of both the Government Relations Leadership Committee and General Counsel Committee of the International Foodservice Distributors Association, co-chairman of the Global Alumni Advisory Board of the American College of Greece, as well as a member of the Board of Advisors of the School of International Service, American University. Mr. Aldous has published in his field and is licensed to practice law in New York, Washington D.C., and England and Wales.

Jeff is a Managing Director and the Global Head of Direct Equity Investments where he is responsible for direction and oversight of the firm’s direct equity investment platform.

Jeff has over 20 years of private equity and public market investing experience, and has served on the board of directors of several portfolio companies and non-profit organizations. Prior to joining Hamilton Lane in 2018, Jeff was a Managing Director at Versa Capital Management, where he focused on making control-oriented, special situations, debt and equity investments in middle market companies across a variety of industries. While at Versa, Jeff participated in all major investment functions and his responsibilities included origination, underwriting, transaction execution and portfolio company development. Prior to joining Versa in 2003, Jeff was an Equity Research analyst at Oppenheimer + Close. He has also held private equity, venture capital, corporate development and investment banking positions at Berwind Financial Group, Redleaf Group, ICG Commerce and Wheat First Butcher Singer, respectively.

Jeff received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia.

Doug Barnard is the chief legal officer of CF Industries (NYSE: CF), an S&P 500 chemical company, having represented the company in its $750M initial public offering (CF was the top-performing company on the NYSE two years later, and outperformed Google over its first ten years as a public company); its $5B acquisition of a competitor following a fifteen-month, four-way, cross-border takeover battle; its $1.4B divestiture of a business segment; and its $3B production joint venture with a domestic customer. He was also Chairman of the Board of CF’s controlled public subsidiary Terra Nitrogen MLP (NYSE: TNH).

Doug has extensive experience in computer science, having led an enterprise-wide SAP implementation at CF, and he holds a professional certification in data science from Harvard. Doug is also coauthor of a chapter on artificial intelligence and the law, which was published in early 2019, and he spoke recently at Harvard Law School on a panel devoted to this topic.

Since February 2019, Mr. Barudin, has been a Director at Chardan Capital Markets providing capital raising and M&A advisory support to emerging growth companies with an emphasis SPAC transactions. He has advised $2.4 billion of IPOs and $1 billion of M&A transactions in the past 2 years. He has also been Chief Operating Officer on Chardan’s own sponsored SPACs. Prior to joining Chardan, from 2007 to February 2019, Mr. Barudin was Managing Director at Terrapin Partners, LLC, a private equity investment firm and SPAC sponsor where he was Chief Operating Officer of several Terrapin-sponsored SPACs and related entities and worked to close 2 SPACs with combined transaction value in excess of $2 billion. At Terrapin, Mr. Barudin managed a portfolio of alternative assets including real estate, energy, private equity, venture capital, hedge funds and fund of funds. Prior to Terrapin, from 2000 to 2007, Mr. Barudin was Senior Director at Medco Health Solutions, where he held various business development and finance positions and concentrated on strategic transactions related to healthcare information technology and pharmacy benefit strategy including laboratory data integration with patient records. Prior to Medco Mr. Barudin was Vice President for Alliances and New Ventures at MasterCard International where he focused on payments and financial technology strategic transactions. Prior to Mastercard, he held positions in corporate finance at Merrill Lynch, PaineWebber Group Inc., and Dillon Read & Co., Inc. Mr. Barudin received an MS from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management and a BSE from Princeton University.

Barry Blake is the Global Co-Head of Healthcare Investment Banking at SVB Leerink. In this role, Mr. Blake co-leads the firm’s healthcare investment banking strategy and initiatives, with a focus on Healthcare Services & Technology. With 25 years of experience, Mr. Blake has built extensive relationships and has proven expertise in healthcare services, leveraged finance and with financial sponsors.

Mr. Blake joined the firm in 2021 from Guggenheim Securities where he was a Senior Managing Director focused on advising healthcare services companies. While at Guggenheim, Mr. Blake worked on many transactions including, but not limited to, the $10B sale of Envision to KKR; the $4B sale of Kindred Healthcare to a consortium comprised of TPG, Welsh Carson and Humana; the $2.4B sale of American Medical Response to KKR and the $1B sale of Almost Family to LHC Group. Prior to this, Mr. Blake was the Head of Global Healthcare Mergers and Acquisitions for Citigroup and worked in the M&A and Healthcare groups at JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers.

Yue Bonnet is a Principal focused on U.S. buyout and growth opportunities in the consumer, retail & internet/media sectors. Ms. Bonnet is based in New York.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Ms. Bonnet served as Director at KKR on the Services team. Prior to KKR, She worked at Palladium Equity Partners for ten years covering the consumer sector. Ms. Bonnet began her career as an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley. She has served on a number of Boards including Pronto Insurance, Taco Bueno Restaurants, Sahale Snacks, Kar’s Snacks, Wise Foods, among others. Ms. Bonnet currently serves on the Board of Women’s Association of Venture and Equity, a non-profit organization focused on the advancement of women in the investment arena.

Ms. Bonnet graduated from the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business.

Desiree Castillejos is the Chief Strategy officer and VP of Corporate Development at Kimball Electronics, a publicly traded diversified manufacturer that serves the Medical, Automotive, Industrial and Public Safety markets. She is responsible for the inorganic growth of the company. She has over 15 years of experience working in corporate development and strategy in the technology industry and served most recently as Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Development, at Nokia.

Desiree received an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a MSc and a BSc in Computer Engineering from the Université de Technologie de Compiègne in France.

David Dobkin is an experienced healthcare capital markets investment banker with a career focused on helping high-growth life science, medical device, and healthcare IT companies achieve their financial and strategic goals. David has worked with companies developing a wide range of technologies and brings extensive strategic advisory and execution capability to his clients. David has experience with both traditional and non-traditional forms of equity and debt offerings in both the U.S. and abroad. He is a regular speaker on growth capital formation at conferences across the United States and Canada.

Prior to joining LifeSci Capital, David founded Dobkin & Company, an investment bank tailored for entrepreneur-lead companies focused on seed and growth equity and capital. Previously, David worked in various capacities with the New Zealand Government facilitating capital formation on behalf of regional companies and government agencies with a focus on securing strategic foreign direct investment. David has tremendous experience conducting cross-border transactions.

Bruce focuses his practice on domestic and cross-border private equity transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, and works closely with the firm’s leveraged finance lawyers on the financing aspects of those deals. Clients such as fund sponsors, strategic buyers and their portfolio companies trust Bruce to complete their leveraged and management buyouts, recapitalizations, mergers, and asset and stock acquisitions. Bruce also represents sellers of businesses to financial and strategic buyers and advises clients on private placements.

Bruce has structured, negotiated, and closed deals in a wide range of industry sectors. Clients value his ability to assemble an efficient team with the legal acumen and industry knowledge needed to help them achieve their business goals.

Corporate clients of all sizes rely on Bruce for general counseling. He advises on governance, fiduciary duty, and other shareholder relations matters. Bruce also advises on financing, licensing, outsourcing, capitalization, and incentive equity. He structures limited liability companies, partnerships and joint ventures and provides guidance to investors and emerging growth businesses in connection with venture capital investments.

Jaime Forsyth is a Managing Director and member of the Senior Leadership Team at Monomoy Capital Partners. She started her tenure with the firm as an investment Analyst in 2008 and leads deal execution from sourcing through exit. Prior to joining Monomoy, Jaime was an Analyst in the leveraged finance group at Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc.

Jaime has served or currently serves on the Board of Directors for 13 of Monomoy’s platform investments, including Kauffman Engineering, Friedrich Air Conditioning and Astro Shapes, all current investments for which she serves as Chairman of the Board. In addition to her deal team responsibilities, Jaime manages the junior investment team and is actively involved in the firm’s internal continuous improvement initiatives.

Jaime received her B.S. in Commerce from the University of Virginia, with concentrations in Finance and Accounting, and a minor in Italian. Jaime grew up outside of Chicago and currently lives in Manhattan with her husband and daughter.

Deepak Gupta is a Senior Vice President at Covanta, with global responsibilities for strategy, acquisitions, divestitures, and integration. Covanta is a world leader in providing sustainable waste and energy solutions. Annually, Covanta’s 40 energy-from-waste facilities with 1,500 megawatts of base load capacity safely convert approximately 20 million tons of waste from municipalities and businesses into clean, renewable electricity to power one million homes and recycle approximately 550,000 tons of metals. Deepak has executed over 35 M&A transactions valued at $8.0 billion in the environmental services and renewable power sectors, including a 2021 going private transaction of Covanta being acquired by EQT Infrastructure fund.

Deepak began his career with Delmarva Power and Light Company, a Delaware based electric and gas utility in project engineering and strategic planning. He subsequently joined Nesbitt Burns Securities, a Canadian investment bank subsidiary of the Bank of Montreal providing M&A and capital markets advisory services and worked as a principal in the bank’s private equity group. Deepak has an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Ms. Jelena Guzenko is Vice President of Mergers & Acquisitions, heading M&A for Siemens Energy, Americas, based out of New York City. Prior to that, since 2011, she was a Director of Mergers and Acquisitions for Siemens Corporation’s Manhattan-based office, responsible for leading M&A transactions on both buy and sell sides for all divisions of Siemens for the Americas region while leading negotiations and large cross-functional teams of experts through all stages of the M&A processes. Ms. Guzenko also has particular expertise in directing large multi-country corporate carve-outs. She has significant experience in development of global strategies for multi-billion dollar divisions, as well as business and market analytics and forecasting in various industries, including Energy, Healthcare, Telecommunications, Construction and Manufacturing. Since joining the company in Cologne, Germany, in 2002, Ms. Guzenko has been enjoying a global career within multiple divisions of Siemens in a variety of senior-level roles in Corporate Strategy, Business Development, Management Consulting, Marketing, Operations and Finance. Prior to joining Siemens, Ms. Guzenko had successful career with Tektronix and Citibank. Ms. Guzenko holds an M.B.A. (“Dipl.-KFF. (FH)”) from University of Applied Sciences Cologne, in Germany, and is fluent in four languages.

Josh combines his background in finance, capital markets and public policy and corporate orientation to develop and lead integrated communications campaigns and investor relations programs.

Josh has extensive expertise advising C-suite executives and boards of directors on communications during sensitive situations, including shareholder issues, shareholder activism, IPOs, contested and friendly M&As, spin-offs, restructurings, bankruptcies, and other corporate crises.

Josh joined Edelman after more than 13 years at Sloane & Company, where he was a Managing Director and head of the capital markets and investor relations practice. Prior to joining Sloane & Company, Josh was a founding partner of Vistance Group, a boutique corporate communications firm, and a senior member of Fleishman Hillard’s corporate communications practice.

Josh graduated with honors from Washington University in St. Louis.

Michael K. Hyun was named deputy general counsel and corporate secretary effective January 2017. He is the corporate secretary of Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (PSEG) and its subsidiaries, including Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) and PSEG Power, and is responsible for corporate governance and the administration of the Board of Directors meeting agendas and processes. In addition, as deputy general counsel, he is responsible for corporate, securities and transactional matters across PSEG including disclosures, capital markets transactions and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Hyun also oversees PSEG’s shareholder services.

Mr. Hyun joined the company in January 2015 as associate general commercial counsel and was later named corporate secretary and associate general counsel in December 2015.

Prior to joining PSEG, Mr. Hyun was a corporate associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP.

Mr. Hyun graduated from Columbia Law School with a Doctor of Law (J.D.) and has a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) from Seoul National University.

Jennifer is a Principal at Edison Partners leading the firm’s fintech investments. As a senior investment lead, her investments include gohenry, Yieldstreet, MoneyLion, Fund That Flip, ComplySci, Bipsync, and Bento for Business among others. She was recognized by VCJ Rising Stars 2021, NJBIZ 40 Under 40 in 2020, the Business Insider as 2019’s Rising Stars of Wall Street, NY Fintech Women’s Inspiring FinTech Females of 2019, a finalist for Finovate’s Fintech Woman of the Year for 2019, and was named to WSJ’s Women to Watch in Private Equity in 2018. Prior to joining Edison, she was at Commerzbank evaluating select European equities for fundamental long/short investments. During her MBA, she oversaw investment prospects and strategic business development opportunities at the Associated Press. Jennifer started her career at ForgeRock, a global leader in identity and access management with a unique history stemming from Sun Microsystems, and built the company from its first year through multiple rounds of funding ($230M+ total raised to date). Jennifer holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in Economics from Johns Hopkins University.

Heather leads Huron Capital’s business development and investment sourcing activities. She over 19 years of experience originating, structuring, and executing debt and equity transactions in the middle market. Prior to joining Huron, Heather was responsible for all West Coast new business development for SPP Capital Partners, a NY-based investment bank. She also served as Vice President and Team Leader of Middle Market Banking at Comerica Bank in San Francisco and has also held roles at CIT Sponsor Finance and Madison Capital Funding LLC where she focused on originating and structuring leverage finance products for private equity clients.

Heather serves as Board Member of the Detroit Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), is the Founder and past Chair of the ACG Detroit Women’s Forum, and co-chair of the 2019 ACG Great Lakes Capital Connection conference. She is Treasurer and Board Member at Barton Hills Country Club and currently serves on the Cornell University Council Administrative Board.

She received a B.A. from Cornell University.

Samuel Maizel is a partner in Dentons’ Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy group. His practice includes bankruptcy matters and financial restructuring in- and out-of-court in all industries, and he leads the firm’s healthcare industry restructuring efforts nationwide. In chapter 11 cases, he has served as lead counsel to debtors, trustees, and creditors’ committees, as well as serving as a trustee, examiner, patient care ombudsman, and consumer privacy ombudsman. He has represented many buyers and sellers of assets in chapter 11 cases. In chapter 9 cases, Sam has represented local hospital districts and other governmental units, as debtor’s counsel and as counsel to creditors’ committees.

Before joining Dentons, Sam was a partner in a national bankruptcy firm, and previous to that he represented the federal government in bankruptcy, district, and appellate courts nationwide as a trial attorney in the US Department of Justice’s Commercial Litigation Branch. He has also served in US Army’s The Judge Advocate General’s Corps, including service in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. Previously he served as an Infantry Officer in the 101st Airborne Division and the 3rd US Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard).

Chandradev Mehta is Director, Mergers and Acquisitions, at LyondellBasell. In this role, Chandradev leads LyondellBasell’s efforts to identify, pursue and execute strategic growth opportunities, including acquisitions, partnerships, investments and joint ventures, across all of the company’s businesses and geographies. LyondellBasell is one of the leading global chemicals company with more than $30 billion in revenues and a manufacturing presence in over 100 locations.

Chandradev has more than 15 years of experience in M&A and Corporate Development and has executed over 25 M&A transactions valued at more than $50 billion in Chemicals and Industrial sectors. Prior to working at LyondellBasell, he was with Citigroup for 9 years where he advised global chemicals companies on M&A and capital raising and led the chemicals investment banking efforts for Citigroup in Asia.

Chandradev has an MBA from The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a Bachelor of Engineering from Gujarat University in India.

Tania M. Moyron is a partner in Dentons’ Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy group. Tania has significant experience in bankruptcy, corporate restructuring and related litigation matters. She has represented Chapter 11 debtors, creditors’ and equity committees, liquidating trustees, principals and secured and unsecured creditors in all aspects of corporate bankruptcy. She also has advised buyers and sellers of assets in bankruptcy and receivership cases, including representation of a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) and restaurant franchise.

Tania’s representations span a variety of industries, including health care, retail, entertainment, trucking, commercial and residential real estate and restaurant franchise industries. She also has litigation experience in state and federal courts and appellate experience before the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, District Courts and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

J. is managing director for Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) within Accenture Strategy. His role focuses on working with leading clients on global M&A transformation deals to address the critical issues facing their businesses. Over the past decade, he has been a prolific author and thought leader on M&A and industry-related topics. J. is based in Cleveland.

Meahgan is well known in the Middle Market M&A community for her knowledge of and views on investing trends, creative and effective deal sourcing techniques, macro-market perspectives and best-practices in which private equity firms can bridge the gap between “Main St. and Wall St.”

Meahgan has a specialized expertise in “market mapping;” identifying the gaps in deal flow from multiple angles and effectively and efficiently filling those gaps. She takes an analytical approach to sourcing, seeking the highest ROI situations and ensuring that they are tagged well in advance. This approach lends itself to long-dated pipeline visibility.

Meahgan is a Director of Business Development for Palladium Equity Partners. Prior to Palladium, Meahgan was Vice President and Head of Global Business Development for KPS Mid-Cap. Meahgan also serves as a limited partner for Dash Fund – a micro-cap venture capital fund looking to invest in the next phase of industry leading entrepreneurs. As Director of Business Development, her primary focus is on new investment generation and intermediary, founder, executive and corporate relationship management across North America and Europe. Furthermore, Meahgan assists portfolio companies with add-on acquisition strategy development and the sourcing of tuck-in opportunities.

Jason focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and SPAC transactions. He has extensive experience representing well-known financial firms in a variety of complex transactions and business development strategies.

Jason Osborn counsels clients on their business development strategies and regularly represents private equity funds, SPACS, founders and entrepreneurs and other public and private companies in complex transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, going-private transactions, joint ventures, divestitures, private financings, recapitalizations, and restructurings. He also regularly advises clients on corporate governance, executive compensation, and general corporate matters. He is a member of the firm’s Videogame, Gaming and Esports Group dedicated to providing comprehensive legal solutions to companies in these industries. His experience spreads across a wide range of industries such as technology, health care, financial services, retail and consumer products, and manufacturing.

Based in New York City, Julia Papastavridis is a Managing Director on Aon’s M&A and Transaction Solutions team. Julia is an experienced corporate attorney and M&A insurance broker with a demonstrated history of work in transactional risk in the insurance industry. Before joining Aon, Julia was a senior transactional risk insurance broker at Willis Towers Watson. Julia also brings extensive experience to Aon from her prior positions as a representations & warranties insurance underwriter at AIG and at Everest. Before joining the insurance industry, Julia was a corporate M&A associate at the law firms of Kramer Levin and Dentons. She earned her J.D. from University of Michigan Law School and M.B.A. from the Institut Administration des Entreprises in Lyon, France.

RONALD J. PRAGUE is Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary of Synchronoss Technologies, Inc., a publicly-held company based in Bridgewater, New Jersey, a position he has held since 2006, where he is responsible for all of the company’s legal affairs. Synchronoss is a provider of mobile cloud innovation, messaging, digital and IoT products, supporting hundreds hundred of millions of subscribers across the globe. Prior to joining Synchronoss, Mr. Prague was Group Counsel for Intel Corporation’s Communication Infrastructure Group. Mr. Prague also practiced law with the New York law firms of Haythe & Curley (now Torys LLP) and Richards & O’Neil (now Morgan Lewis). Mr. Prague is a frequent speaker at various legal conferences and has written several articles on various legal issues. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of ACC New Jersey, and is co-chairperson of the ACC New Jersey Technology and Small Law Committees, and a member of the Livingston Sports Council and Cornell Agriculture and Life Sciences Alumni Board. Mr. Prague is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law and received a B.S., with distinction from Cornell University.

Eklavya Saraf is Nasdaq’s Global Head of SPAC listings and a Managing Director of new listings. In his role, he advises companies on the process and benefits of listing on Nasdaq. Eklavya coaches early stage companies to leverage Nasdaq’s resources, and optimize financing opportunities and brand visibility. Eklavya helps develop Nasdaq’s relationships with investors, law firms, and other capital markets constituents. Some of Eklavya’s recent transactions include Peloton, Warner Music Group, Royalty Pharma and Vroom, amongst others.

Melissa Scanlan is a Vice President on the T-Mobile Legal Affairs team, responsible for managing antitrust, intellectual property (transactional and litigation), and related complex commercial litigation. She oversees teams working corporate transactions that implicate compliance with the antitrust laws, advocating before federal and state agencies. In addition, she advises on antitrust compliance relating to all aspects of wireless telecommunications business initiatives. She directs strategy and tactics for intellectual property issues, advising on IP assets and liabilities, as well as litigation and risk management.

She is the Co-Founder and Chapter Leader for ChIPs Pacific Northwest, which is an organization that advances and connects women in technology, law and policy.

Melissa began her legal career as an associate at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., practicing litigation and antitrust law. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1991, where she served as an editor on the Yale Law Journal.

Kimberly Smith is the global chair of the Corporate Department at Katten, where she helps her clients buy, sell and invest in businesses. Widely honored for her work across a range of industries, her true talent lies in structuring complex transactions and eliminating all road blocks to making them happen. Kimberly has vast experience in the deals she handles: leveraged buyouts and other acquisitions, sale transactions, joint ventures and other investments. Whether representing a private equity fund, family office or strategic acquirer, Kimberly listens to what really matters to them in each transaction. Then, she strategizes accordingly and gets the deal done.

Jason Strife is a senior managing director and head of private equity and junior capital at Churchill Asset Management. He is responsible for sourcing, executing, portfolio construction and monitoring Churchill’s middle market private equity and junior capital investment efforts, including fund commitments, equity co-investments and junior debt investments.

Previously, he worked as a principal at Bison Capital, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm focused on structured junior capital investments in lower middle market companies. Prior to that, Jason was an investment professional at Weston Presidio, a Boston- and San Francisco-based middle market private equity firm focused on growth capital and leveraged buyout investing.

Jason graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Analytical Finance and a master’s in Accounting from Wake Forest University, where he earned a partial scholarship for his graduate studies and passed the CPA examination.

Christina Ungaro is the Vice President and Head of Corporate Development at Wind River Systems, a leading technology company delivering software for embedded systems and edge computing. In this role, Christina leads the strategic development, sourcing, execution and integration of acquisitions and strategic investments. Prior to Wind River, Christina oversaw Corporate Development at Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), a global commercial real estate services firm, where she led the completion of more than 30 acquisitions and divestitures over nearly seven years. Christina spent ten years with IBM Corporation where she held various roles in Corporate and Business Development supporting M&A transactions and investments across the areas of software, IT services and hardware. Christina began her career on Wall Street as a sell-side equity research analyst covering the Telecommunications sector at Jefferies & Company and then ABN Amro. Christina has a B.S. from Georgetown University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She enjoys cooking, interior design, travel, and outdoor activities. She currently resides in Connecticut with her family.

Brian D. Walters serves as Senior Vice-President and General Counsel for Matthews International Corporation, Pittsburgh’s oldest company in continuous operation since 1850 and operating in over 25 countries. For over 16 years, Brian has directed all legal matters for this publicly-traded corporation both nationally and internationally, as well as serving as a member of Matthews’ executive leadership team and secretary for the nominating and corporate governance committee of Matthews’ Board of Directors.

In addition to his day-to-day legal responsibilities, Mr. Walters has led 70 domestic and foreign acquisition initiatives on behalf of Matthews, including actively negotiating deal terms, drafting definitive agreements, managing due diligence, coordinating strategies to secure transaction approval from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, managing HSR filings, as well as filings with the competition authority of the European Union, and leading project management offices as part of integration management. Brian’s deal experience includes recent stock purchases of public and private companies in Austria, China, England, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States and Vietnam. With over 11,000 employees, Matthews reported revenue of approximately of $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2020, having tripled in size during Mr. Walters’ tenure with the company, primarily through strategic acquisitions and mergers.

Derek Zaba is a partner in the Palo Alto and New York offices and co-chairs Sidley’s Shareholder Activism practice. He counsels companies on a variety of matters, including activism defense/proxy contests, activism preparedness, takeover defenses, shareholder engagement and corporate governance. Over the past two decades, he has been involved in dozens of activist campaigns and proxy contests in various advisory and principal capacities. Prior to Sidley, Derek was the head of the activism defense practice at a leading shareholder engagement and corporate governance advisory firm. He also served as a Partner and investment professional at activist and event driven hedge funds. Derek began his career as a corporate associate at a New York-based law firm.

Derek has been recognized in the 2021 edition of Chambers USA as a leading lawyer in Corporate/M&A: Takeover Defense with clients noting, “He speaks to the board in a way that makes sense. He’s really good.”

Derek is a highly sought after speaker for panels on the topics of shareholder activism and related matters, is frequently quoted and regularly speaks on the topic of shareholder activism, including at Stanford University Law School and on public radio.